My name is John Calabrese. I live in Menomonie in Dunn County, and I’m a field organizer with GROWW, and I started back in January.

And so the last project we’re going to talk about today is the newest one, it’s called All in Favor. The All in Favor campaign got moving early this summer, and we are in the process of building a strong leadership network to connect with and support people who want to serve in nonpartisan, local elected offices. So, town boards, school boards, city councils, county boards.

Myself, I am currently near the end of my fifth year serving on the Dunn County Board of Supervisors. I was appointed to fill a vacancy the first time around. On a frozen February night, in a lower-level basement conference room. No windows, fluorescent lights. There’s a Wisconsin and a U.S. flag behind a big dais on the far wall and a clock and a map of Dunn County on the side wall, and my soon-to-be colleagues kind of milling around, talking to each other, drinking terrible coffee out of little Styrofoam cups. And like it was yesterday, I remember I pledged an oath to the Constitution that night. And the chairman said, “All in Favor of this appointment, signify by saying, aye.”

And that’s how it started.

I learned so much in my service. I’ve built so many relationships. I’m dedicated to the work, as are so many others like me. But something is missing, and it’s power. 

Yes, important work is being done at the local level. Connection and education is happening among elected leaders. Vital services are being provided, management of finances, maintenance of the way things are. 

It’s all happening daily in local government, behind the scenes of our busy lives. But the power is not there. Local governments are not powerful and we local elected leaders are not behaving powerfully.

The All in Favor campaign intends to change that.

All summer long, I’ve been traveling around our seven-county area, speaking with local elected officials from Barron to Alma and everywhere in between. We want to know why they serve, what they see, why it’s important to them. 

There’s this knowing connection between people who serve and who have served. And so it doesn’t take long before they open up to me in these conversations. They’re eager for someone to hear about their village and their work. Kind and warm neighbors of ours religiously making their way to those rural town halls, down those long roads, in the heat of the summer, in the dead of winter, year after year after year.

And what I learned is that pretty much, we’re all doing it on our own. Your local representatives are not unified around a shared governing agenda. We have not been governing with a larger vision for the western Wisconsin community. As representatives, we are in positions of power and yet we shy away from tension. We’re fearful to take risks. We behave like people who are alone.

A common refrain in local government is, “That’s the way it’s always been done.” Well, the way it’s always been done is not good enough, and it’s clearly not working. Just look at our rural main streets. Look at our roads. Look at our impaired waterways. Look at the shuttered family farms. The way it’s always been done is not sustainable.

For my two young boys, 11 and 9 years old, western Wisconsin is the only home they’ve ever known. If I want them to be able to look toward the future with hope and excitement and possibility – which I do, more than anything in the world – the way it’s always been done is not going to cut it.

And so with the GROWW Values & Platform as our grounding bedrock, the All in Favor project is creating a home and a place of belonging for local elected leaders to be part of something larger, part of a community that participates in local government and supports local leaders on their paths to power together. All year round.

We are creating the unified power and political infrastructure that we’ll need to protect the groundwater in Pierce County, to support affordable housing in River Falls, and to show that GROWW’s platform is not a hollow statement. It’s a document with real power behind it.

On Saturday, November 11th, in Menomonie, we will host our first Pathways to Office workshop. And it’s not at all just for candidates, but also for those of us who will support them in their campaigns and long after they’ve won their seats.
Now, let’s give this a try, everybody. We need your vote. All in Favor of working powerfully from within our local governments so that everyone in our communities can make ends meet, live with dignity, and have a voice in shaping the future of Western Wisconsin, please signify by saying aye.